


and we'll be running again

by jdphoenix



Series: terragenesis [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Sequence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6770362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes Jemma nine days and ten thousand years to get home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are gonna be more drabbles than chapters but I'll try to keep them going chronologically as much as possible. (And don't worry. This fic is all for the present-day stuff. The past stuff is gonna get its own posting. And if that makes no sense to you, you should go read the first fic in the series.)

Exhausted, starving for food and water both, she is barely conscious when the heart of his storm finally reaches her. She will not remember the heavily gloved hands wrapping around her shoulders or the lap that cradles her head, but he will remember every second of it.

His goddess. Jemma. Returned to him ten thousand years later.

The irony - that once again she has been _given_ to him - is not lost on him, and neither is the much more painful fact that she doesn’t remember him. She doesn’t even _know_ him. Yet.

He considers removing the gloves so that he may touch her, feel her skin beneath his (how many hosts has he held who never touched her? bodies that never felt her skin against theirs? it seems wrong, like those weren’t really _his_ if they were never hers) but this body is old, falling apart at the seams. The suit is necessary to keep it together. So he contents himself with the weight of her across his lap and the sight of her.

His hosts bring him memories of thousands of women spanning all the ages of the Earth. No longer are Jemma’s features alien to him. It should perhaps dim her beauty in his estimation, but in truth it does the opposite. There has never been another like his goddess, not in all the annals of history.

His storm is reaching its end and he wills it back to circle around. Jemma he leaves where she fell, in sight of the underground lake he’s uncovered for her. She will have water and, some time after, she will have Will. He has known Will Daniels to be her lover from the moment he set foot on this world and has spared him for her sake. Now that kindness will finally bear out and she will have the comfort she needs in this hell the masters exiled him to.

He rests his hand one last time over her hair and lets his mind slip into hers, only for a moment, only long enough to grant her peaceful dreams. He lays her carefully in the sand.

This body of his is truly wearing thin; he can barely lift his feet to walk away.

 

 

\-----

 

 

Remembering how she hated his presence in her mind at first, he tries to keep his distance. It’s difficult, in a world with so little to keep his attention, but he tries for her sake.

Will, he extends no such courtesy towards. The man fell in love almost from the first and Alveus would laugh if his throat could still support it; he remembers her effect well. It is Will’s pain he feels when the portal is too far (he did not _know_ \- he tore the gorge asunder when she first arrived, how was he to know she would need to cross it to reach home?) and Will’s heartbreak when Jemma shatters in the safety of the caves.

And Will’s joy when - _finally_ \- she allows him to touch her as he’s so often dreamed.

In a distant valley, too far away for either of them to reach within their lifetime, a mountain crashes to the ground.

 

 

\-----

 

 

He takes Will once Jemma is gone. She no longer has need of him and Alveus has great need of his memories.

He drowns himself in them, taking up residence in the caves simply to be closer to the memory of her.

 

 

\-----

 

 

“I don’t want you to end up dead like me,” he tells her, fighting to temper Will’s words because he knows - he _knows_ \- and though he knows it must, he wants to stop it happening. “ _We_ don’t want that to happen to you.”

He doesn’t know who or when, but soon (it _must_ be soon, she looks exactly as he remembers her) she will disappear from this world and enter his. He was hoping James would be the one, that by reaching him first he could control it. But James’s powers are not the ones that land Jemma in the Kree’s hands and he’s _running out of time_.

He touches her cheek and he knows her acquiescence is all for Will, for _his_ voice and _his_ words, but if this is the last time, he’ll take it.

She accuses him of stealing Will’s memories and he can’t deny it. She shoots him and as pain arcs through him, he remembers the first death. Her hands on his wound, trying to hold him closed when it was his entire chest laid bare. She begged him to stay, told him he _could_ , that he could live on in another body. She even killed one for him herself and demanded he take it.

He watches her run from him and wonders if he will ever see her fire again.

 

 

\-----

 

 

He doesn’t. He feels her disappear from the world only hours later.

Right now, she’s waking up in a world as alien to her as Maveth. Right now, she’s been dead for ten thousand years.

His goddess is dead.

He orders Malick’s private plane brought down immediately. They land in a field. Wheat, though he barely notices. He tells the others to remain on board.

Daisy worries. She attempts to speak to him the same way she once attempted to speak with Grant. He tells her to stay and goes outside to fall apart.

 

 


	2. deja vu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This quick drabble takes place somewhere in the midst of the previous chapter. (I really need to stop writing bits of this fic that span such massive swaths of time.)

There’s a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach like she’s been here before - seen this before. It leaves her cold all over and gripping her portable scanner tight enough the plastic casing groans.

But that’s silly. She’s never been to this museum let alone in its subbasement, and this sarcophagus has been in storage since before she was born. Likely she’s just remembering no small number of scary movies involving similar scenarios and it’s them that are getting to her now.

“I wouldn’t get too close,” Dr. Zoha cautions, her accent crisp with worry. She’s still back by the door - unsurprising given how much convincing it took to get her to let them down here at all.

“There’s no sign of anything dangerous,” Jemma says and angles her head for a look at the DWARF readouts in Lincoln’s hands. Nothing there either.

“Not _yet_ ,” Zoha says. “There are two layers to the sarcophagus - or two that we know of, we’ve never made it past the second layer because it’s locked; that’s the only way to describe it,” she adds when both Lincoln and Jemma throw her disbelieving looks. “There are puzzles that must be solved in the correct order to get it open.”

“Has anyone ever succeeded?” Jemma asks.

Zoha shakes her head, causing her curls to bounce around her face. “Everyone who’s ever been present at the opening of the outer layer has died within the year.”

“That could be coincidence,” Lincoln says, but he doesn’t sound terribly convinced.

“You’re probably too young to remember, but there was a flu outbreak in this area about forty years ago. It was stopped only when neighboring regions blocked off roads using military force, keeping the virus contained in a hundred square mile radius. Patient zero was the last scientist to look inside the outer layer - or I suppose you could argue the woman inside was patient zero.”

Lincoln shoots Jemma a look. 

“He could have traveled,” she whispers, “or been exposed to animal fluids or-”

“Or _alien_ fluids,” he cuts in.

Jemma purses her lips; she really can’t dispute that possibility. The woman in the sarcophagus is supposedly one of the original Inhumans, there’s no telling what sort of pathogens she might be carrying.

“I’m putting my foot down on opening it before we’ve got it quarantined,” he adds.

Jemma rolls her eyes but, when they land on the sarcophagus, is privately grateful for his superstitious nature. No matter her reasoning, she can’t shake the chills the thing gives her.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to learn something from her,” she says, approaching it to stare at the face carved into the heavy stone lid. It could just be embellishing on the part of the artisans, but she looks young.

“Hopefully,” Lincoln agrees as he rounds the sarcophagus’ other side. His hand hovers over the carvings on the lid, stopping just short of touching. This must be strange for him, finding the body of one of his earliest forerunners.

“We’ll be respectful,” Jemma promises. His head snaps up and she smiles. “After all, if she’s everything they say, she might just save the world.”

He grins at the joke. While the woman herself isn’t capable of anything anymore, her DNA might just hold the answers they seek. According to Inhuman legend she was the only one capable of withstanding Hive and it was her who banished him to his prison. 

When Jemma stares into the dead eyes of the carving, she’s sure this shudder is because of memories of the planet and of Will. She turns her back on the sarcophagus - even though every cell in her body is screaming at her not to - and heads for Dr. Zoha, still standing at the door. Now that it’s been agreed they can’t open it outside of quarantine, its time to convince the woman to let them take the sarcophagus off her hands.

Jemma doesn’t know why it chills her bones to think of it coming home with them to the Playground.


	3. reunions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read "yesterday's ahead of me" (the first fic in this series) you should probably do that as this takes place after it.

They had to cut her hair - there was no saving it after centuries in a sealed container - and its loss only makes her look more sad, but her cheeks have filled in after a few days of real meals and her skin’s warmer now that it’s clean; she’s starting to look like Jemma again.

Phil gives her a smile when he enters the containment pod, but she doesn’t move to rise. It breaks his heart - even after Maveth she wouldn’t be kept in bed - but she’s barely moved from this one in two days. She looks small and broken, curled up like that and, unprofessional as it may be, the only thing he wants to do is pull her into his lap so she can cry it out.

But Jemma’s no more his daughter than Daisy is, no matter how often he thinks of them that way, so he settles the metal folding chair next to the bed and sits himself down for what’s gonna be one of the worst debriefs of his life.

“Jemma,” he says gently.

Her face turns into the blankets and he catches the flicker of a tear. For a terrifying moment he’s sure she’s crying and all his resolve to keep his distance is gonna crumble, but then she pushes herself up to a sitting position. The blanket pools over her folded legs and she buries her hands in it.

“You have no idea,” she says slowly, “how long I’ve needed to hear you say that.”

He leans into the back of the chair with the best smile he could muster. “The Kree didn’t call you ‘Jemma’?”

She barks out a laugh. It wouldn’t be a good sound at all except that _any_ sound from her is good at this stage. “Actually, the Kree called me ‘Clairvoyant.’” She’s smiling, not as big or as warm as he’d like but that is a definite upturn to her lips.

“You’re joking.”

“It’s likely not an exact translation but it’s close.”

He chuckles briefly before turning somber. “Did they hurt you?” He hates to ask it because he knows that smile’s gonna disappear, but he has to know.

She looks away. “Yes.”

He gives her a minute with that, but can’t help reaching out to set his hand over her knee. She looks at it oddly.

“You’re not afraid?”

He tips his head to one side. “You haven’t released a pathogen since you woke up. I don’t see any reason to be worried.”

She looks to the walls and the door, the window where Melinda’s hovering.

“It’s just a precaution. You know protocol. We’re not actually worried about you doing anything to hurt us.” That is a lie but one he feels justified in delivering. It may be less than two weeks since she went missing, but the truth is she’s been gone for thousands of years; there’s no telling what’s happened to her in that time or what sort of person she’s become. He _wants_ to believe she’s still the woman they lost - and if, by some miracle, she is, then the last thing she needs is to know they’re second-guessing her - but he’s not so sure.

“You should be,” she says so softly he wouldn’t catch it without her next words. She meets his eyes squarely when she says them. “The Kree were.”

He thinks again of the sarcophagus, of what it would take to bury someone alive, and of the cruel sweetness in her tone when she woke up. He didn’t understand the language she was speaking, but he understood her intent well enough.

He’s sure, if they had any sense, the Kree were absolutely terrified.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“How are you feeling?”

Leo is an idiot. _How are you feeling?_ How does he _think_ she’s feeling? She got accidentally abducted by an Inhuman who then died, leaving her stranded in the prehistoric past with a bunch of aliens who’d be right at home in a torture porn flick. Hell, there’s a decent chance every alien abduction film, every country hick who thinks he’s been probed, can all be traced back to some genetic memory of the Kree.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly and sets a box on the edge of the mattress. Coulson found it for him; it’s one of the ones those security bracelets are kept in, but that’s not what’s in this one.

Jemma takes it carefully into her lap and lifts the lid back. Her expression seizes when she sees what’s inside, and he leans his forearms on the bed.

“It was all we could save,” he says quickly. “I thought you might like them back.”

She lifts a jasper bead from inside the box. Leo’s not sure what she’s seeing when she stares at it - the designs carved into it or some far away memory - but her lip quivers as she sets it down in front of her.

Her clothes couldn’t be salvaged. Between the centuries and the pathogens clinging to every inch of them, they were a lost cause. But the three beads they found in her straw-like hair when they cut it off, those he could clean up, same for the thick iron band she’d been wearing around her bicep. He’s spent the time waiting to be allowed in here sterilizing them so he could give them back to her.

“Thank you,” she says thickly, lifting out the fire opal. She closes her hand around it before setting it down to take out the blue agate. That one’s the largest of the beads and she draws her finger down its length after laying it next to the others. The armband comes out next. She sets the box aside, done with it, and stares at the circle of metal in her hands. Her jaw tightens.

He waits a minute, glad just to be able to watch her, then pulls the chair sideways so his hip’s against the mattress and he can more casually reach for the beads.

He fingers the opal. “Do they- do they mean something?”

Her eyes move to the beads and he worries he’s done something wrong by touching one, but then one corner of her mouth tips up. She sets the armband carefully in her lap and reaches to tap the blanket an inch below the agate. “Ixi. It means ‘volition’ or ‘willpower.’” She moves to the jasper on the other side of the opal. “Esdin. Or the color the sky turns at dawn.” Finally she comes to the opal. “Lea. It doesn’t mean anything at all,” she says tearily, “but I didn’t learn a word for lion until much later and-” She breaks off, her eyes screwing shut.

Leo’s heart is tight in his chest - and not just because Jemma’s in pain, which always makes him feel sick. He doesn’t want to, but while she composes herself he takes the opportunity to study her face. She looks the same. There are no new scars or wrinkles, which is kind of surprising, honestly.

Just a few days ago she was a corpse, so decayed Leo would’ve called Lincoln crazy when he asked permission to start administering fluids. But Leo wasn’t there. While Lincoln was studying the body from the sarcophagus, Leo was _done_. He was angry he’d been pulled from watching the computers fail to find Jemma even once and refused to do anything past guiding the DWARFs through unlocking the inner chamber of the sarcophagus. Jemma was right there and he couldn’t even see her.

He sees her now though, and she hasn’t changed at all.

“Jemma,” he says slowly.

She steels herself before meeting his eyes. There are tears in hers. He could kill the Kree.

“How long were you there?” he asks. “Before you- before-”

“I don’t know.” Her voice is thin and she reaches down to pick up the armband again. She holds it like it’s the most precious thing in the world. “There weren’t exactly calendars but…” She looks to the beads. “Ixi was a young man the last time I saw him.” The tears start to fall. “So I’d say twenty years at least. He couldn’t have been nearly that old, but it was some time before we- before we began trying.”

Leo slumps back in his chair. He feels cold all over. There’s a “we” and three others besides, named for him and Daisy and Will. He’s not sure what breaks his heart more: that Jemma had a whole life she’ll never get back or that she had a whole life while he was still hoping they were gonna start one together.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“What the hell is she doing out here?” Piper asks.

Melinda tenses, ready for a fight. Daisy’s not gonna be easy to take down but Melinda knows her better than anyone, she’ll manage. Only it’s not Daisy walking sedately down the center of the street.

“Simmons,” Melinda breathes. Her heart’s in her throat and she hasn’t been this terrified since the moment she realized Simmons was jumping from the Bus.

Phil’s cursing on the comms, demanding to know why no one noticed her leaving Zephyr One and ordering Fitz to _sit down_ , he’s not going anywhere.

“Ma’am?” Piper asks.

They do _not_ have time for this. “Go. Find Hive. If the Kree find him first, let them have first crack at him, but if they fail…”

The others nod. They know what to do.

Melinda pockets her comm; the last thing she needs is to be distracted by Phil directing the others while she’s trying to deal with this. “I’ll catch up with you,” she says and takes off after Simmons.

It doesn’t take long to reach her, she’s not exactly in a hurry. In fact, she looks almost serene. Drowning in that sweatshirt she wore out here - definitely not fit for a mission, Melinda taught her better than that - she’d look young if the moon wasn’t shining on her unnaturally pale skin. As it is, she looks the very definition of inhuman.

“Jemma?” Melinda reaches for her but Simmons just twists her shoulder elegantly away, making a little grapevine with her feet to dance out of reach without ever stopping. “ _Simmons_.” Still nothing.

Melinda falls into step with her, torn between watching her and their surroundings. The town is crawling with HYDRA and Inhumans; it’s not safe.

“Simmons,” she tries again. “I know you said Hive can’t sway you-” And wasn’t that a blow? They spent so much time on the sarcophagus, hoping it held the key to beating him - and not that Melinda’s _sorry_ they found Simmons, but she can’t help them. It’s her powers that protect her from Hive, not something they can replicate and administer to other Inhumans. “-but the Kree are out here and you said yourself they’re hunting Inhumans.”

“Reapers,” she says. “They’re incredibly dangerous, bred to wipe out civilizations - like us.” She’s smiling.

“Yes,” Melinda says tightly, “and I don’t want to see them wipe _you_ out.” She tries reaching for her again, only to drop her hand in frustration when Simmons twists away. “We just got you _back_.”

Simmons stops to face her. They’re at a three-way crossing with a park blocking the way they’ve been heading. Melinda scans the open area quickly before meeting Simmons’ eyes. She doesn’t like what she sees in them one bit.

“They put me in a _box_.” Her hands shake as she lifts them to her throat, moving aside the thin cord Mack gave her for her beads. “I can still feel his arm around my throat and the needle-” Her hand drops to her hip. “They _buried me alive_.”

“I know.” Melinda steps closer to her and this time succeeds in grasping her shoulders. She hopes now that she has Simmons talking she’ll be able to coax her back to Zephyr One. She _has_ to because over Simmons’ head she sees the Kree killing one of the HYDRA soldiers. “But this isn’t the way. You have no plan, no weapons.”

Simmons’ smile is so alien Melinda’s hands lift from her shoulders without permission. “They gave me all the weapons I need.”

She turns like she knew the Kree was behind her all along. It’s fighting Alicia now - and the woman is losing. Badly.

It’s only Simmons that saves her. The Kree sees her coming and abandons its killing blow to run at her with a twisted smile.

“ _You_ ,” it growls.

Simmons doesn’t move to dodge, she doesn’t even slow down.

“Jemma!” Melinda yells. She runs. Maybe she can push her out of the way, maybe she can throw the Kree off.

In the quiet of the empty square, Melinda’s cry is still sounding off the surrounding buildings when the Kree stumbles, slows, and finally falls to its knees. She stumbles to a halt herself, too shocked to continue.

Simmons keeps on going until she’s standing over the alien. It tries to lift its weapon from the grass but can’t even lift the hilt.

“What,” it heaves, “have you done?”

In a gesture that’s almost loving, Simmons cups its face in her hands. Melinda can’t see her expression, but from her tone of voice she can guess well enough how disturbing it might be.

“I’ve had ten thousand years to work up a pathogen capable of wiping your people out. You were dead the moment you set foot on this planet.”

“You are an _abomination_ ,” the Kree spits along with some of its own blood.

“Yes,” Simmons agrees. “You made sure of that. You _broke_ me and you _enslaved_ me and you stole me _from my children_.” She tips the Kree’s head back so the only thing keeping it upright is her grip on it. “What did you think I was going to do?”

She lets go and the Kree falls to the earth with a sickening whine. Simmons steps carelessly over him. She's not just Inhuman now or even inhuman, she's someone Melinda doesn't recognize at all anymore.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Simmons is acting _weird_. She’s wandering around the garage they repurposed into Radcliffe’s lab, looking at all his equipment and, as far as Daisy can tell, listening to him babble about his failures. All of that is normal - aside from her being _here_ (she’s kinda supposed to hate them) - except she isn’t saying anything _back_. All this science and she hasn’t said a word about any of it.

“Where did you find her?” Daisy asks Alicia softly. She eyes the peach fuzz on Simmons’ scalp, hunting for sign of an injury that would warrant cutting her hair off. Maybe  _that’s_ why she’s acting so out of it.

Alicia shakes her head. “She found me. Saved me from the Kree.”

“What? How?” Did the Kree attack Simmons? How did they make it out of there?

“She killed it.”

“ _What?_ ”

Radcliffe stops his description of the townspeople liquefying to throw a glare at Daisy. She ignores him.

“ _Simmons_ killed a _Kree_?” When Alicia first arrived with Simmons in tow and told her the Kree was dead, she thought _Alicia_ had killed it. There’s no way Simmons could kill _anyone_ , especially not an alien killing machine.

Alicia nods carefully, her eyes locked on Simmons. “She touched it, and it died.” She goes on, whispering about how the Kree was going to kill her, how angry it seemed when it saw Simmons, and how Simmons brought it to its knees without even laying a finger on it.

Okay, maybe …

Daisy steps forward.

Maybe Simmons shouldn’t be here. Maybe her missing hair is a symptom of something else, something SHIELD did to her. Maybe she’s a threat to Hive.

They need to get Simmons out of here. _Now_. Before Hive can come back.

“Where is the Kree?” Hive strides into the garage. One shoulder of his coat is torn completely off and his right hand’s dripping thick, blue blood. He tosses a Kree heart onto one of Radcliffe’s sterile trays. “I gave you one job,” he says. The anger in his voice makes Daisy feel like it’s her heart he ripped out.

She swallows thickly and straightens her back. “I-”

“Sorry to ruin your plans,” Simmons says, not sounding sorry at all, “but I did tell you if you didn’t hurry about killing them-”

Daisy’s seen the expression on Hive’s face before. Two weeks ago, just after they picked up Radcliffe, he ordered them to land so he could unleash a Biblical level plague on three rural farming counties. They spent all night parked in the quinjet while he and his parasites tore across the countryside in one of those sandstorms Simmons told her about. The look on his face when he left is the same one he’s wearing now.

He whirls, cutting Simmons off.

She smiles but there are tears in her eyes. “Hello, Alveus.”

Hive crosses the garage to her and already he looks nothing like the leader Daisy loves so much. His footsteps are heavy, his movements jerky. All the grace Daisy’s used to seeing in him is long gone. Even Ward was never like this.

Hive reaches for Simmons and it’s a good thing because he falls to his knees and has to clutch her to keep himself from falling farther. “My goddess,” he breathes, almost like a prayer.

Simmons pets his hair while her other hand digs into his shoulder, holding him just as tightly as he holds her.

 


End file.
